The Women of the Caesars eBook

At last Agrippina arrived at Rome with the ashes of
her husband, and she began with her usual vehemence
to fill the imperial house, the senate, and all Rome
with protests, imprecations, and accusations against
Piso. The populace, which admired her for her
fidelity and love for her husband, was even more deeply
stirred, and on every hand the cry was raised that
an exemplary punishment ought to be meted out to so
execrable a crime.

If at first Piso had treated these absurd charges
with haughty disdain, he soon perceived that the danger
was growing serious and that it was necessary for
him to hasten his return to Rome, where a trial was
now inevitable. One of Germanicus’s friends
had accused him; Agrippina, an unwitting tool in the
hands of the emperor’s enemies, every day stirred
public opinion to still higher pitches of excitement
through her grief and her laments; the party of Germanicus
worked upon the senate and the people, and when Piso
arrived at Rome he found that he had been abandoned
by all. His hope lay in Tiberius, who knew the
truth and who certainly desired that these wild notions
be driven out of the popular mind. But Tiberius
was watched with the most painstaking malevolence.
Any least action in favor of Piso would have been interpreted
as a decisive proof that he had been the murderer’s
accomplice and therefore wished to save him.
In fact, it was being reported at Rome with ever-increasing
insistence that at the trial Piso would show the letters
of Tiberius. When the trial began, Livia, in
the background, cleverly directed her thoughts to
the saving of Plancina; but Tiberius could do no more
for Piso than to recommend to the senate that they
exercise the most rigorous impartiality. His
noble speech on this occasion has been preserved for
us by Tacitus. “Let them judge,”
he said, “without regard either for the imperial
family or for the family of Piso.” The
admonition was useless, for his condemnation was a
foregone conclusion, despite the absurdity of the charges.
The enemies of Tiberius wished to force matters to
the uttermost limit in the hope that the famous letters
would have to be produced; and they acted with such
frenzied hatred and excited public opinion to such
a pitch that Piso killed himself before the end of
the trial.

The violence of Agrippina had sent an innocent victim
to follow the shade of her young husband. Despite
bitter opposition, the emperor, through personal intervention,
succeeded in saving the wife, the son, and the fortune
of Piso, whose enemies had wished to exterminate his
house root and branch. Tiberius thus offered
a further proof that he was one of the few persons
at Rome who were capable in that trying and troubled
time of passing judgment and of reasoning with calm.